"Bring more Reform Jewish content into the education system," Tamir said at the 18th Biennial Conference of The Israel Movement for Progressive (Reform) Judaism, which took place Friday and Saturday at Kibbutz Shefayim.

"I see in the Reform Movement a potential inroad for the introduction of Jewish subjects in our school system," she said.

"There is a thirst for knowledge, especially among our youth, and I expect you to quench that thirst.

"As a minister and a human being with a pluralistic approach to the world, I identify with Reform Judaism. When I pray, I pray in an egalitarian Reform synagogue."

Tamir called on the Reform leadership to "create facts on the ground."

"That's the way to make a lasting change," she said. "I recommend that you devote your energies to education, not to legal battles."

Einat Hurvitz, director of the legal department of the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism’s Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC), said IRAC petitioned the High Court of Justice about six years ago on behalf of the congregation and the movements.

“We had a big stick, but we decided to put it down,” said Anat Hoffman, IRAC’s executive director. “The court petition led to the negotiations, and in the end we were given six synagogues at a cost of two million shekels,” almost $600,000.

Hoffman, who has dedicated her life to the notion of inclusion and choice, insisted that “a little competition is good for everyone.”

Israel, Hoffman said, “should be the largest supermarket in the world from a religious perspective, a Club Med for the soul. You can’t be a supermarket with just one item on the shelf.”

Rabbi Andy Sacks, director of the Conservative/Masorti movement’s Rabbinical Assembly in Israel said he is confident that the synagogue precedent “is a portent of things to come.

I foresee that the government being forced by the courts to fund [non-Orthodox] mikvahs, salaries for conversion teachers, circumcisions for non-Orthodox converts and salaries for rabbis who aren’t Orthodox.”

Rabbi Sacks, whose movement plans to inaugurate its first government-funded synagogue in Modi’in next week, said his movement has opened or will soon open court cases on these issues.

When asked what religious movement they feel closer to, 49 percent of secular Israeli Jews said they identify with the progressive moment, while only 10 percent of those polled said they identify with Orthodox movement.

A quarter of secular Israelis said they do not identify with any religious movement.

The poll furthermore revealed that 71 percent of secular Israelis are in favor of adding liberal Jewish content to the school curriculum, as opposed to 24 percent who said they were against the idea.

38 percent of secular Jews living in Israel keep kosher often or at all times, while 36 percent of Israeli families that define themselves as secular light Shabbat candles, according to a recent survey conducted by Market Watch for the Israel Movement for Progressive Judaism.

According to the survey, 50 percent of Israeli Jews don't keep kosher at all times, and 47 percent of secular families never light Shabbat candles.

Twenty percent of the respondents said they go to synagogue on a regular basis, while 42 percent said they never attend prayer service.

The director of the Jewish Agency's Immigration and Absorption Department, Oded Solomon, is resigning in protest over changes the organization is introducing in its activity to encourage aliya.

The JA has been working for the past few months on a sweeping reorganization plan, at the center of which is drastic cuts in immigration activity as well as diverting resources into the fields of Jewish and Zionist education.

The longer North American immigrants deliberate about moving to Israel before taking the plunge, the likelier they are to settle in areas which are heavily populated by other Anglos, according to a newly-completed piece of research on the significance of social networks on immigration from developed countries.

Solomon joined the JA just 18 months ago from the private sector, where his last job was as CEO of Gerber for Israel and the Middle East. He brought to the task new marketing methods for encouraging Jewish immigration from affluent Western countries. But he says his plans were not well received within the JA, and that he ran into disagreements with senior officials.

This group, which numbers 38 adults, two children and two babies, is among the last batch of Falash Mura that the Israeli government plans to bring to the Jewish state. According to embassy officials, another 300 or so Falash Mura will be brought to Israel by the end of June, and then the operation will be complete.

Embassy staff have already begun seeking employment elsewhere, as rumors of impending cuts in personnel make the rounds. It is the end of an era, one official says, proudly adding that the ancient community of Ethiopian Jewry has at last found its way home.

Activists in Israel and the United States disagree, saying that there are at least 8,700 Falash Mura in the Gondar region whose eligibility for aliya has not even been reviewed by the Israeli government, which they accuse of wanting to shut down the process in haste.

And they vow to press on until every last member of the Falash Mura who wishes to return to Judaism and the Jewish people is allowed to do so.

The Absorption Ministry is worried. As its director-general, Erez Halfon, explained in the Knesset meeting, his ministry lacks the institutions of a professional education system, the Hebrew teachers themselves, and the funds to run the 300 nationwide courses.

Many Gen Y-ers -- people born between the mid-1970s and early 1990s -- don't buy into the mainstream demand that they wave the Israeli flag and pledge support to the Jewish state.

Uncomfortable with terms like "Israel advocate" or "pro-Israel," many of today's future leaders are forging an arena where they can build a relationship with Israel that is nuanced and multifaceted, relying on cultural interactions or collaborative tikkun olam projects, sometimes in addition to, sometimes instead of, traditional political advocacy.

To them, Israel is not a miracle to be held in respectful and infallible esteem, but a complex reality to be criticized and/or befriended, woven into or left out of many layers of their ongoing search for meaning.

It is a shift in attitude that the Jewish establishment is still trying to get its head around.

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews founder and president, Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and Jewish Agency representatives presented the latest rupture as a simple bureaucratic matter, borne of clerical errors.

Eckstein says that the Jewish Agency missed a deadline for a marketing plan publicizing the new partnership, thus breaching the agreement. Both sides say that IFCJ now has the plan and is reviewing it, and that they hope the matter will be resolved soon.

…Eckstein said he would not resume payments under the partnership until both sides reached an agreement on the marketing plan, which he described as a crucial measure of how seriously the Jewish Agency takes its relationship with Christian donors.

He said he wants Jews and Jewish organizations “to see evangelical Christians who are supportive of Israel as not just niceties, not just as friends, but as strategic partners for Israel around the world.”

Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone wrote last week to chief rabbis Shlomo Amar and Yona Metzger that the revival of the Latin liturgy calling on God to enlighten the Jews to the Catholic Church is not a call for missionary work toward Jews.

After a number of years during which the city was prohibited from doing so, Jerusalem City Hall this week distributed NIS millions to talmedei Torah classified as “not recognized” in the city towards building improvements and to acquire supplies.

In past years, legal limitations prevented the move but this year, Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky had city legal advisors and experts establish new criteria and take necessary steps to create a new reality, now placing such action within the framework of the law.

According to Rav Ori Maklev, who holds the city’s chareidi education portfolio, he is working to bring total equality between the “recognized” and “not recognized” institutions until they both enjoy equal funding.

After years of legal directives preventing unrecognized talmudei Torah from receiving funding, the Jerusalem Municipality recently made it possible to complete the transfer of millions of shekels earmarked for substantial renovations, equipment purchases and operational costs at chareidi educational institutions.

The payments went through after Jerusalem Mayor Rabbi Uri Lupoliansky formulated new criteria that allow the municipality to legally support the institutions.

According to a ‘Chadrei Chadarim’ report, customs officials in Ben-Gurion International Airport are targeting Chareidi travelers, pulling them over to the side upon their arrival for a thorough inspection.

An unnamed “customs’ source” quoted in the report stated that travelers with a chareidi appearance are being selected by customs agents in an apparent operation to single them out among other travelers. The source is quoted as explaining the operation is intended to apprehend people carrying illegal funds into the country.

Outdoor advertising company Maximedia has notified the distributors of 'Sex in the City' Forum Films and its publicist, Golan Advertising - that the movie based on the popular TV series of the same name will not be allowed to advertise in Jerusalem and Petah Tikva, because the word "sex" appears on the signs.

"The news was a great shock," said a spokesman for Forum Films said. "We have not asked to advertise nudity, or messages that may be offensive to the general public and the ultra-Orthodox community in particular. Nevertheless, this is the name of the movie. We feel that it is ridiculous to prohibit us from advertising the brand without naming it," he added.

Keren Hahasa'ot was formed two years ago by Maran HaRav Eliashiv and the Rosh Yeshiva HaRav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman shlita when the government failed to transfer payment for transportation costs, based on dubious claims devised by jurists.

Until then the government had provided partial funding for the Chinuch Atzmai busing program. At government schools the remaining transportation costs were covered by the local authorities, whereas Chinuch Atzmai institutions had to obtain the balance of funding through coalition agreements.

Two years ago, although the balance of funding had been arranged and approved by the Knesset Finance Committee, jurists blocked the transfer of payment, claiming it was illegal and citing a High Court decision in a petition filed by the Reform Movement.

A new high school for religious English-speaking youth will open in Jerusalem's Bayit Vegan neighborhood in September, 2008. Rabbi David Samson, noted author and educator, is founding the new program and accepting 9th and 10th-grade boys in the first year.

The program, called Yerushalayim Torah Academy (YTA), answers an overwhelming demand of many new immigrant families who are concerned about their children's integration into the Israeli yeshiva (religious) high schools.

YTA will offer a full GED program, and a full Israeli bagrut (high school diploma). The goal of the YTA founders is that by the end of 12th grade, all the graduates will continue to Israeli yeshivas and programs, and become a thriving part of Israeli society.

Different organizations have been fighting for years for control over the site. They are motivated of course not only by a yearning to cling to the righteous man's holiness, but also by a desire to have some of the substantial amounts of money the place brings in each year cling to them.

According to Yossi Shvinger, the director general of the National Center for Managing Holy Sites, the alms boxes placed there bring in NIS 2.5 to NIS 3 million shekels a year for the different charitable trusts. But because there is a serious dispute among them - which has been through the rabbinical courts and the civil courts - the site is neglected.

Last week, the Supreme Court decided to hand over the site to the state's management, at least temporarily. The judges ruled that a committee be set up to run the site headed by a representative of the state, whose members would include four members of the charitable trusts.

For the first time, the fate of the gravesite in Meron is being determined by a secular court, and will be handed over to the management of the secular state, instead of rabbinical courts and religious organizations.

Meron is not the only holy site visited by masses of pilgrims on Lag Ba'omer. The custom to pray at the grave of Shimon Hatzadik, one of the earliest and most famous high priests of the Second Temple, dates back to the 1800s.

The burial site of Shimon Hatzadik is located in Wadi Joz, near Sheikh Jarrah, on the road leading to Mount Scopus. The grave consists of a man-made cave hewn in the Roman or Byzantine Period and has three interconnecting rooms plus a fenced-in yard. The cave and surrounding field were purchased by the Jews of Jerusalem in or around 1876.

The latest example of this burgeoning interest in contemporary Kabbalah is a three-day series of lectures and workshops at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba this week titled Kabbalah and Contemporary Spiritual Revival: Historical, Sociological and Cultural Perspectives.

Israeli officials are attributing an American tourist's apparent suicide-intended leap from a 13-foot walkway at a Tiberias hospital to "Jerusalem syndrome."

The 38-year-old made the leap on Friday night and remains hospitalized in critical condition with broken ribs, punctured lung and a crushed vertebra.

The victim had been taken to the hospital by his wife on the 10th day of their group tour of Israel. He had been unable to sleep and had become overly anxious, according to newspaper accounts.

After being interviewed by a psychiatrist and giving samples for blood tests, the tourist walked out on to the 13-foot walkway and jumped. Jerusalem syndrome is described as "a psychotic state brought on by visits to Jerusalem or the Galilee. It induces a state of religious ecstasy which overcomes the tourists."

Dr. Gerald Finkelstein, who is leading a new archaeological dig in Jerusalem, claims to have discovered the very quarry which supplied stones used thousands of years ago to build Jerusalem's Western Wall, also known as the Kotel.

Pottery from the Herodian period through the destruction of the Second Temple was found at the excavation site. These finds, paired with the type of stone, further suggested the quarry's connection to the construction of the supporting walls surrounding the Temple Mount, including the Kotel.